Finalists to be 2010-11 Clippers coach are Dwane Casey and Vinny Del Negro

The LA Times reports:

The long and winding coaching search for the Clippers has reached the final stage.

The team will be bringing in the two finalists Tuesday for a final series of interviews, a Clippers official told The Times. The candidates are Dallas Mavericks assistant Dwane Casey and former Chicago Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro.

If this all sounds vaguely familiar, well, it is. It's a repeat of the intense contest between the two for the Bulls head coaching spot in 2008.

After reading this article I think I actually prefer Casey over Del Negro IF we keep John Lucas around as an assistant.

Dwayne Casey:

Quote:

The Good

* Defensive focused coach who was moderately successful as a head coach improving this area
* Loves the game of basketball and is student of the game always looking to learn and improve his coaching ability.
* Has a diverse coaching background from high level college basketball, NBA and overseas.
* Said to be a disciplinarian one who won’t let players run over him but not an authoritarian who over coaches and doesn’t accept thoughtful input from key players, assistant coaches or advanced scouts and statisticians.
* Good at developing players and is fantastic with his game preparation and maximizing practice time.
* Overachiever
* According to Dean Oliver who was with the Supersonics while Casey was an assistant, Dwane does use advanced statistical analysis as part of his coaching toolbox.

The Bad

* Inexperienced as a head coach with only a year and half under his belt with a bad team. But for an assistant it’s actually more than most.
* Said to have weird/questionable rotations and substitution patterns and well as still learning/lacking with his in-game management and adjustments such as when to call timeouts and what is executed out of timeouts.
* Perceived to be laid back (but some also say he is intense enough to compliment that)
* Would seriously need to paired with a strong offensive lead assistant.

Summing It Up

Good up and coming coach who unjustly got a bad reputation in Minnesota coaching one star surrounded by a bunch of misfits. Just needs an opportunity with a club that has a decent roster and managment that has a clue. Has his flaws but isn’t egotisical so he realizes and acknowledges them in order to get better. Jury is still out whether he is best suited as an assistant coach because of his strong prepatory and player development skills or can legitimately a good head coach (can excel in game with rotations and tactical adjustments). But the belief by some people is that he can take mediocre roster and overachieve.

Quote:

Dwane Casey: More Depth

John Hollinger was a big Casey proponent and was completely dumbfounded when he was fired by Kevin McHale and fools that run that organization.

Here is the article from Hollinger after Dwane Casey was fired. (my bolding for emphasis of key points)

Can anyone remember the last time a coach took a team that was expected to be lottery-bound, had them at .500 and in line for a playoff spot at the halfway point of the season in a very tough conference, and got fired anyway?

I can’t, which makes Dwane Casey’s dismissal by the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday one of the season’s more puzzling events.

Minnesota hired the guy only a year and a half ago, and the same exec who hired him then — team president Kevin McHale — was the one wielding the hatchet today.

Somebody, anybody, please tell me what this guy did wrong.

Casey kept the Wolves in the top half of the league in Defensive Efficiency all season despite basically having only three big men in his rotation — Kevin Garnett, the sporadically motivated Mark Blount and rookie Craig Smith, a second-round draft pick.

You can’t critique Casey’s late-game strategy either: He more than held his own in close games, winning three straight overtime contests earlier this month.

But apparently losing four games in a row — two of which can directly be pinned on Garnett’s ejection against Detroit last Friday and subsequent one-game suspension — was too much for Minnesota’s brass to bear. No matter that the Wolves were 7-5 in January, or that they surprisingly held the West’s No. 8 seed heading into Monday’s games.

Apparently Minnesota management thinks this is still 2003-04 and they’re gunning for the Western Conference title. This would be an absurd notion with almost any other franchise, but the Timberwolves are perhaps the league’s most delusional franchise.

From the lofty contract extensions they’ve handed out to even their most mediocre players, to the way they’ve axed both Flip Saunders (in February 2005) and now Casey rather than admitting the serial imperfections of the roster, to their current refusal to trade Garnett before his value declines, Minnesota’s front office has existed in an alternate state of reality for some time now.

In the early hours after McHale’s move, we’re still hunting down all the skeletons associated with Casey’s firing, but one thing is for certain: There’s a good coach walking around today without a job, and he deserved better.

Let’s hope Casey lands on his feet with one of the many openings that are expected this summer. And in the meantime, let’s hope the Timberwolves can start acting sensible some time before the end of the decade. – John Hollinger

Here is John Hollinger again before the 2007-2008 season (season after Casey was fired) doing his preseason forecast (cut down and abbreviated with just the Dwane Casey antedotes)

A bigger factor, however, was head coach Dwane Casey, who had his undersized team competing far more aptly than anyone had thought possible. To the shock of many, he kept the Wolves in the top half of the league in defensive efficiency through the first half of the season and had Minnesota at 20-16 through 36 games.

While that record was several games better than anyone who covers the league expected, it apparently wasn’t better than the team’s management expected. And when the Timberwolves hit a four-game losing streak that dropped them to 20-20 on Jan. 23, the Wolves made the unbelievable decision to fire Casey — apparently believing their team was capable of much better despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.

My favorite quote was Kevin McHale’s complaint that, “We started the season with certain goals and expectations that have not been met.” What pray tell, were the expectations? Casey had the team in the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the West on the day he was fired, something which would have won him coach of the year had he kept it up. But McHale somehow thought his trash heap of undesirable contracts was capable of more. In fact, owner Glen Taylor reportedly told Casey that the team was capable of making it to the Western Conference finals. (This might technically be true, but I couldn’t verify if the Hungarian Basketball Association had split into conferences.)

“We don’t want to be the eighth seed,” McHale said when he fired Casey, and man, did he ever get his wish. Newly instated coach Randy Wittman went 12-30 the rest of the way as Minnesota finished well out of the money. The defense that thrived under Casey almost immediately went in the tank, as the Wolves were one of the league’s bottom three teams in defensive efficiency over the final 42 games.

Moreover, after McHale complained about a lack of consistency in Casey’s tenure, the team failed to win consecutive games after the All-Star break under Wittman. All told, this had to be the most idiotic coaching switch of the past decade. – John Hollinger

Chris Sheridan’s take on Casey’s dismissal from the Wolves:

Today’s dismissal of Dwane Casey appears to me to be a case of “We’d better fire him now while it’s still convenient, because it might not be easier to fire him down the road.”

The Wolves’ current four-game losing streak gave owner Glen Taylor just enough cover to try to justify the change, but this firing had been coming ever since management forced Casey to get rid of trusted assistant Johnny Davis last summer in order to clear the way for Randy Wittman as the ownership-chosen lead assistant. – Chris Sheridan

I'd prefer Casey over Del Negro as well. I have read nothing but negatives from Chicago papers and such over VDN's firing, while I've read that Casey was unfortunately fired by the Wolves and never given a fair chance.

Although I would've liked to go after someone with more experience than these two, guess hope in Casey is something that might as well be given

I'd prefer Casey over Del Negro as well. I have read nothing but negatives from Chicago papers and such over VDN's firing, while I've read that Casey was unfortunately fired by the Wolves and never given a fair chance.

Although I would've liked to go after someone with more experience than these two, guess hope in Casey is something that might as well be given

I think a combination of Casey, Lucas, and Brown will appeal to the players as well. Has there ever been an all black coaching staff ever?